The market for job placement: a model of headhunters
Résumé
This paper deals with the consequences of the existence of private employment agencies on the labor market. Using a matching framework, we study the conditions of existence of private employment agencies and the consequences of competition on the market for job placement. We show that the private employment agencies enter in the labour market only if they are much more efficient than the private agency. Moreover, the level of the unemployment benefits is a disincentive to manage workers for the private agency. Because of a high fallback position for the worker, it is costly for the private employment agency to manage a worker having some low probabilities to exit from unemployment. If these conditions are satisfied, the existence of private employment agencies improve the labor market through shorter unemployment spells and a lower unemployment rate. Moreover, an improvement in the matching process is an incentive for the firms to post vacancies at the private agencies. Nevertheless, the workers managed by the private agencies receive some lower wages than the other workers because of the payment by the firm for recruiting a worker. Finally, we show that private employment agencies have a natural disincentive to manage unskilled workers. But, the introduction of a subsidy to match an unskilled worker with a vacancy seems to be a sufficient incentive to make the private employment agencies managing unskilled workers.
La fin du monopole des agences publiques de placement dans la plupart des pays de l'OCDE permet aux agences de travail temporaire de développer leur activité de recrutement en emploi permanent. Dans le cadre d'un modèle d'appariement, cet article montre, dans un premier temps, que la concurrence sur le marché des placements facilite le retour à l'emploi des chômeurs. Cette amélioration du marché du travail se réalise sous certaines conditions : efficacité significativement plus élevée de l'agence privée, faible niveau du salaire de réservation. Cet article illustre, dans un second temps, le désintérêt des agences privées envers les travailleurs peu qualifiés plus nombreux et plus difficiles à placer. L'introduction d'une subvention au placement d'un travailleur peu qualifié corrige cet effet et permet de réduire le taux de chômage.
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